HOME GALLERIES RESEARCH CURRENT INFO FOUNDATION CONTACT
Photography 1938-1955
Photography 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
Drawing 1 - 2
Scores 1
Collages 1 - 2
 
PREV | NEXT


Chicken
Trimmed 8x10 inch contact print, 1939
In January 1938, Frederick Sommer acquired an 8x10 inch Century Universal camera. To make his earliest images he used a 21-cm Zeiss Tessar (designed for a 4x5 inch camera), which did not cover the ground glass when focused at infinity. The lens would cover the ground glass at closer working distances and so Sommer turned his attention to still life arrangements and small details in nature.

The still life material that had Sommer's attention from 1938 to 1941 was gathered from the butcher's refuse box at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store on the corner of Montezuma and Gurley Streets in Prescott, Arizona. At this time chickens were delivered by the farmers on Thursdays whole and plucked. When you purchased a chicken, the butcher would weigh it, cut off the head, open it up, take out the innards and then finish the job to fit your cooking needs. The contents in the refuse box consisted only of heads, ovipositors, intestines, anuses and testicles of the chickens butchered that day.